IÉSEG students get involved with UNICEF
06/14/2021
IÉSEG’s mission is to empower students to become managers who will be pioneers of change, inspiring, ethical and intercultural, and to promote creative solutions for and with responsible organizations. The notions of ethics, solidarity, and CSR are thus integrated into all the School’s programs in a transversal and interdisciplinary manner.
For more than 20 years, second-year students of the Grande École program have been involved in a charitable cause through a group project (called Projets Co’). This year, the solidarity project has been completely redesigned and is presented in a new format.
In partnership with UNICEF, the project is part of the restructuring of the Bachelor cycle of the Grande École program, which aims to emphasize interdisciplinarity, and is now held over a single semester.
This flagship project allows first-year students of the Grande Ecole program to apply the skills (Communication, Project management, Accounting, Governance and risk management, Legal liability…) and soft skills that they have acquired in class to an international solidarity project.
The first stage of the project allows students to get familiar with solidarity associations at large by having them visit a local association.
The second phase (from May 10th to May 26th ) consisted in a fundraising for two UNICEF projects.
The third and last phase of the project is a “solidarithon” – a solidarity hackhaton held from May 24th to May 28th during which students worked on the following theme: “With UNICEF, build Burkina Faso’s future by allowing each child to have access to distance learning”. In addition, students benefitted from conferences on Burkina Faso’s geopolitics and cultural diversity, a drama class, and coaching sessions to guide them in their project. At the end of the “solidarithon”, the students handed in their final report and presented their final project in front of UNICEF representatives and IÉSEG professors.
Over €116,000 collected for UNICEF
For the fundraising initiative, the students were divided into teams of six or seven. In Lille, 96 student groups worked for the “Myanmar pollution” program which aims to reduce air contamination and its effect on children’s health in Myanmar. The 84 groups at the campus of La Défense mobilized for the “Girl Power in Ivory Coast” program – a project that works to resocialize vulnerable teenage girls.
Thanks to their fundraising strategy, mostly conducted via social media, the students exceeded their initial objective (€72,000) and collected €116,000 in total for both projects.
“We were all pleasantly surprised by the fundraising results. UNICEF also was impressed by the amount of money collected and the students’ creativity”, say Nicolas JEAN and Romain NOËL, project coordinators . “From an academic point of view, we assessed our students’ work based on the relevance of their communication strategy, their ability to define objectives, as well as their own analysis of their results.”
A project in line with the School’s Vision 2025 and its values
Solidarity and commitment are the key words of this project, which is perfectly in line with the School’s values and CSR commitment. It allows students to open up to the world and to take an interest in issues that they don’t face in their everyday life. “Our students have broadened their perspectives and stepped out of their comfort zone. The solidarity project is a source of great questioning, new vocations may emerge, and this is what makes the project particularly interesting” adds Romain NOËL.